Yesterday (TUE), we celebrated Kansas Day and the 152-year history of the state. But what do we mean when we talk about history? Is it just the stories of the famous, and the infamous? Who writes history? How do we pass along information from one generation to the next? Professor Ellen Gruber Garvey teaches English at the New Jersey City University, and has learned a lot about the day-to-day history of the mid-19th century by looking at the things people saved into scrapbooks. Garvey has written about her research in the book "Writing with Scissors." She spoke with KPR's Laura Lorson about the insight into daily life that can be found in scrapbooks dating from the 1850s and earlier. She said one of the first that really caught her imagination was actually given to her by another teacher.
Ellen Gruber Garvey is an English professor at the New Jersey City University in Jersey City. She spoke with KPR's Laura Lorson. Garvey's book is called "Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance." It's published by the Oxford University Press. Dr. Ellen Garvey's webpage is located here. You can interact with others about scrapbooks and the ideas discussed in "Writing with Scissors" at the book's Facebook page, located here.